I found some plans for a cool toy box for my 2 year old I’d like to build. It was off of a site called rogue engineer.

I do have a few questions… it calls for the box portion to by plywood (which I’m fine with) but they call it sandply. What is sandply? I usually go to Menards for my wood (I also have a HD here). I’ve gotten the 5 green stripe nicer construction plywood and the double sided oak plywood for projects, but not sure what this sandply is.

Also, at the corners of the box, they don’t use any trim or solid wood to hide the ply endgrain – I’d like to make it look a little neater than that. I am guessing if I bevel the verticle edges to make a 45 the veneer would chip out and it’d look poor, right? The only thing I can think of other than filling the edge and painting it (or using edge banding) is to have a 1×1 or something be the corner piece and have the ply butt up to that on both sides of the corner.

heres a link to the project. Doesn’t have to be anything exotic – he’s 2 and it will likely take one heck of a beating through the years. :)

8 replies so far

Never heard the term “sandply”. Just use a good quality plywood. I wouldn’t leave the edges exposed because it will easily chip. Take a look on YouTube (Jon Peters Arts & Home); he built a plywood toy chest and has a very clever way to cover the exposed plywood edges. He has about 3-4 videos showing the build process. Plus, it is a very nice looking chest.

Menards has a sanded plywood product that I have used. My kids are grow and with kids of their own.

I built several toy boxes for them. They were about 16 wide , 24 long and 12 tall. I built them out of the glued up pine that you can get from Menards. The corners were dovetails and I put carpet style casters on the bottom. I also attached a short 3/4” rope to pull it with. The bottom was inset and 1/2 ” plywood.

The toy boxes survived everything the kids did to them including riding in them as another pulled them…the boxes are now with the grand kids except two with toy in my house for when they visit. The boxes are easy to move around and have the kids put toys back in them. It is never too early to have them learn to pick up their toys.

I can’t imagine just butting the ends of two pieces of plywood to make a box. That has to be about the weakest joint possible. Butting the end of the ply up to a corner post isn’t a whole lot better. A slightly beefier corner piece with dados for the plywood would make a much stronger box and give it a much nicer finished look.

If you put a lid on it you should install a slow closing device to avoid smashed fingers. Also when closed, air should be able to get in there in case a child gets inside and goes to sleep. This is a common occurrence. This is the last one I made.